Month: October 2004

Between church and the Red Sox game, Kevin and I headed over to a farm stand in Woodinville to go pick up pumpkins. Their pumpkin patch was great, the kettle corn smelled awesome, and even though it was too cold to stay for long, I’m finally feeling like it’s October.

Here’s a shot of our pumpkins, waiting to become jackolanterns. We’re taking our chances with pumpkin smashers and leaving them outside…


 

And here are our mini pumpkins and gourds. I like the green, yellow and orange one on the left the best, even if its stem DID fall off:


 

I finally finished the hood this morning! This is some sort of record for me: look how much I’ve gotten through in the last 3 weeks and one day. Certainly all of the baseball and debates have been helping, but I’m still pretty pleased. I obviously haven’t blocked yet, since this is curling all over the place (esp the shoulders), and I haven’t sewn the hem in place, but all of the ends are at least woven in. Yay for progress!





The best part of this is that I finally made myself attempt the kitchener stitch to bind together the cable at the top of the hood. My verdict on the stitch: not impossible, but certainly worth its reputation. I loved the result. I think grafting this way would be a breeze for stockinette now that I have the rhythm down, but figuring out how to make it flow with the cables was something of a trick. I ended up (after a bit of trial and error) just turning it inside out for the purl stitches and working from the inside. It took a bit of work to figure out where to make the turn to make it look right, but on the whole, I think it worked out well. You can only see the seam on two stitches, so i’m pretty happy. 🙂 Hopefully in the detailed hood shot, you won’t even be able to make it out at all!

Last night, we had one of our best sunsets yet. I was in the car driving to Diana‘s to help paint, and Kevin was in the car driving home from work, and we both thought it was stunning (especially the reflection off of Rainier! Wow!). Neither of us had the means to take a photo, though. Tonight’s sunset wasn’t spectacular, but it was still quite pretty. This is the view from a few houses up our street. Lake Washington and the Olympic Mountains. You can’t see it here, but my favourite part was watching all of the lights glittering on the hills across the lake. Washington is a beautiful state.

 

I think I’m about as enchanted with Mt. St. Helens as everyone else is the vicinity, and so I’ve been dutifully checking the VolcanoCam every day. I’m not as bad as the guys who set up with their lounge chairs and coolers of beer to watch the mountain through binoculars, but, as I said, I check.

This morning I actually woke up early (7:05 — wow!), and so I got to my morning internet rounds a bit before usual. When, what should appear, but THIS:

 

My first reaction was, “It’s exploding! And I’m the first to know!!” Reason kicked in a few seconds later when I realized that all the clouds outside were that color, too. It’s called “sunrise.” 😛

Today was just a beautiful and crisp fall day, so I took a late afternoon jaunt over to Queen Anne to see what Nancy’s Sewing Basket had to offer. I was looking for a button and some ribbon for my new needle case, black grommets for my felted bag, and possibly material for curtains. No dice on the grommets or curtains (there was some gorgeous blue fabric, but it cost $10.70 a yard… oof, no thanks.), but I found awesome buttons, and passable ivory ribbon, so I’m a happy camper.

First of all, the needle case button: irridescent green and blue loveliness.

It works wonderfully with my hard-to-match fabric:

Just “ooooh”.

And then, while I was looking, I came across these great blue stars… Some say tacky, I say Beautiful. 🙂

The pacific northwest has very large and determined spiders. They seem to come in waves, where I’ll see 4 or 5 huge spiders indoors over the course of a day, followed by a month of peace. Meanwhile, this guy has set up shop in the pine tree right next to our front door… I know that he isn’t technically doing any harm there, but I get goosebumps walking by him.

The sympathy shot:


 

I take full responsibility for what happened in the seventh inning… everyone in the Angels dugout looked so *sad* and I started to think that it would be sporting if they at least got a few more runs in before losing. Within the inning, Myers and Timlin loaded the bases, walked one guy home, and then Guerrero hit a grand slam and the 6-1 lead was gone. Luckily the Sox overcame my misplaced sympathy for the Angels and finished strong. Good job, guys. I promise to focus from here on in.

I had to take a break from Rogue (I can’t work on that when I’m concentrating on something else or my hood increases go all awry). Since I had a bunch of cascade left over from my booga bag (pictures to come as soon as I find black grommets and can put the thing together), I figured I would make a few felted potholders. I already have a small blue&black collection, but people were coming over for the debate and it got me motivated. I didn’t get them trimmed in time for the evening, but they’ll be ready and waiting for the next time:

 

Instead of brushing up on my C++ or prepping for job interviews, I’ve been knitting. Oops. 😛

Here’s rogue so far, with the side cables a row and a half away from completion and the markers in place for the beginning of the neck cables:

I know everyone else has said it before, but it’s so fun to watch the cables grow! I found the repeat on rows 33-38 of Chart A incredibly confusing, but I’m past it now, and it all looks great. Here’s a little zoom on the side cables: